Free December Frost (A Southern Romance Monthly) by CJ Hockenberry

 
    Thomas didn't answer right away and Cecelia wondered if she'd stepped on a land mine. Finally he said, "Yes. I didn't know if that was still classified. I don't suppose telling you is problem. We're on the same team."  
    "You stole things for the US government."
    He laughed. "Don't sound so surprised, detective. The government has many questionable programs running. The one I belonged too is still there. I retired out after having a slight—shift of conscience. Once that happens, and it happens more often than not, I was given an honorable discharge, signed my life's secrets away, and struck out on my own. I traveled for a while and met with a guy who went by the name Professor."  
    "Odd."  
    "I found out he once belonged to the same group I had, but now ran a small business for who ever could afford it to steal back priceless things that were stolen from them."  
    The exit came into view and Cecelia took a look over the edge. No traffic. Not one car. Sweet! She took the ramp and once she hit the pavement, gunned the motor north. "Sounds fishy."
    "Not so much fishy as squirrely." Thomas shifted in his seat. "There are a lot of stolen items out there. Some of them are priceless, and some are only priceless to the former owner. But, they want them back just as bad as the owners of the priceless stuff."  
    "So…you're like Superman or Batman? You right the wrongs and find them?"
    He held out his left hand and wiggled it. "Eh…so-so? I mean, I took a few of expensive finds. They were easy. It's alway easy to catch a thief if you used to think like one. And you put my brains together with the Professor's and it didn't take much. And they paid a lot of money."  
    "That's how you bought your mom's house." Cecelia glanced in the rear view mirror. She saw a single pair of headlights some distance behind them, and in the far right lane.  
    He touched his nose. "While I was working, this other thief started making a name for himself. And a few of the items I returned were stolen by him. After I found the third item and returned it to its owner, he left me a message in my hotel."
    "Seriously?" She glanced at the rear view mirror again. The headlights were gone.  
    "Yeah. Freaked me the hell out. That's when I started calling him Phantom 'cause that's how he signed the message. I flew back home and had state of the art security systems installed in every one of my houses. Then I called a friend of mine in the FBI and gave him a complete report on this guy and he told me about interpol's search for him as well."  
    "So…" she frowned. "Were you at the High working for the Professor?"
    "Yes and no. My FBI contact had already told me they had intel that the Phantom was going to try and steal something out of the High, but they weren't sure what. There wasn't any kind of major show going on there during the time frame given. Then the Professor called—well his daughter Blair called—and told me the Professor'd been contacted about this particular statue at the High that a client wanted him to steal it back."  
    "Steal back?"  
    "That little girl with the dog? La petite fille de fleur. I found out it was created by a French artist named Ribeaux. His mother was African American, his father French. Ribeaux made six statues in his life, all of them of a little girl in a different pose. The collection disappeared after his death in 1974, reportedly stolen from the family home, or so it was reported for insurance purposes. Suddenly the one with the dog and flowers shows up for auction five years ago and someone in Atlanta bought it and then donated it to the High."
    "And you think the one who put up for auction had it stolen from the original thief."  
    "Or, from whom ever hired the thief to steal it. Or the person that bought it from the thief. And my hunch is that the thief who originally stole the single piece is the Phantom, and the one who holds the rest of the collection wants it back."  
    The headlights showed up again,